Pallid sturgeon 'stable': Comments sought on draft recovery plan for fish

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is accepting public comment on a plan to protect the pallid sturgeon, which is found only in the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. Efforts to prevent the extinction of the bottom-feeding fish have led to laws against harvesting it and its look-alike, the shovelnose sturgeon, a lucrative source of roe.

On March 15, wildlife service officials released a draft of the pallid sturgeon recovery plan and written comment will be taken through April 15. The fish was listed as endangered on Sept. 6, 1990, under the Endangered Species Act. It is found in the Missouri River from Montana to St. Louis and in the Mississippi River downstream to New Orleans. Commercial shovelnose sturgeon and shovelnose-pallid sturgeon hybrid fishing is prohibited in Missouri in the entire Missouri River and in the Mississippi River south of Melvin Price Locks and Dam near Alton, Ill., according to the Missouri Department of Conservation.

The state of Missouri adopted a recovery plan in 1995 that attributed near-extinction levels to river modifications made in the previous 100 years. At the time, capture information indicated the fish had not reproduced naturally for at least 10 years.

Since then, the federal plan notes its status "has improved and is currently stable." However, despite efforts to study it for more than 20 years, "data regarding recruitment, mortality, habitat use, and abundance remain limited." If conservation efforts were to cease, the species would once again face extinction, the wildlife service document says.

George Jordan, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Pallid Sturgeon Recovery Coordinator, who prepared the recovery plan, said that when pallid sturgeon have been caught, very few are young fish, suggesting they are not replacing their populations. They can live 50 or more years, he said, and the wildlife service has established a hatchery system so young fish can be bred, studied and reintroduced into the environment.

"Now we can start filling in some of those data gaps," Jordan said. "We didn't have anything to study until we really got our hatchery system going."

The first scientific study documenting pallid sturgeon populations in the middle Mississippi River was published in 2010 by Ryan Boley of Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. He said that of the 581 larval sturgeon collected in his research, 581 were shovelnose, one was a hybrid and one was a pallid sturgeon.

Aside from complying with the Endangered Species Act, which was made law in 1973, preserving pallid sturgeon populations is important to understand potential problems in the environment, Jordan said.

The species and its ancestors have occupied the Missouri and Mississippi river basins as we know them for 70,000 years, based on fossils found in Montana, Jordan said. Pallid sturgeon can grow to be 3 to 4 feet long and weigh 30 pounds in Missouri waters, he said. In the northern extent of the habitat range, they have been documented at much larger sizes. The largest on record was roughly 6 feet long and weighed about 60 pounds.

The pallid sturgeon is like a "canary in the coal mine," Jordan said. If environmental problems are causing a hearty species that has been able to withstand ice ages to dwindle in numbers, the same factors eventually may have an effect on other river life.

The pallid sturgeon bears a close resemblance to its cousin, the shovelnose sturgeon, prized for its roe. In 2010, a federal rule was adopted that classified the shovelnose as threatened in order to protect the pallid sturgeon from poaching or accidental harvesting.

Commercial fishing was outlawed in waters where the two species coexist at a time when officials estimated that the fish's eggs were being sold for up to $100 per pound. The demand for the roe increased because of the collapse of the Russian beluga caviar market from pollution and over-harvesting of beluga sturgeon found mainly in the Caspian Sea. Retail prices found online Monday for shovelnose caviar were $40 to $50 per ounce.

Jordan said anyone with "substantive, verifiable information" about which federal officials should be advised in establishing the recovery plan should write to the wildlife service. Comments are taken under consideration, but the public comment process is not a platform to express support for or against conservation efforts, he said. The address is Northern Rockies Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 2900 4th Avenue North, Room 301 Billings, MT 59101.

In some areas where shovelnose sturgeon solely are found, harvesting roe still is allowed with a license. A Darwin, Ill., man was arrested Friday for harvesting shovelnose sturgeon from the Wabash River and selling the sturgeon eggs without a license. For an Illinois resident, a commercial roe harvesting license is $250. For a nonresident, it is $3,500. Last year, two Missouri men, one from Sikeston and one from Charleston, were charged with 74 counts of illegal harvesting and paid more than $43,000 in fines and civil damages for using commercial nets to take shovelnose sturgeon from the Mississippi River in Iowa a day before the commercial fishing season opened.

Any pallid sturgeon caught must be immediately returned to the water unharmed. In Missouri, limited numbers of shovelnose sturgeon can be caught for sport in certain areas. Their eggs cannot be extracted while on waters or adjacent banks and their eggs cannot be sold.

For information on laws governing fishing in Missouri, contact the Missouri Department of Conservation at 290-5730 or visit www.mdc.missouri.gov. Information on Illinois fishing laws may be found at www.dnr.illinois.gov or by calling 618-462-1181.

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